The pandemic sucked in a lot of ways, but one thing many workers view as a benefit was the normalization of working from home. Unfortunately, some employers aren’t happy with their employees being happy, and are now doing everything in their power to entice them back to the office. Meanwhile, others are just resorting to threats, apparently.


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According to Vice, WebMD’s parent company recently published an incredibly bizarre video making fun of remote workers and threatening employees who declined to return to working at the office. While the video was meant for internal use only, it was also published on Internet Brands’ public Vimeo page, which is a pretty huge rookie error for a company with “internet” in its name.



In the video, which has since been taken down, company CEO Bob Brisco complains that “unfortunately, too big of a group” is still working remotely, and he is getting “more serious” about bringing employees back into the office. He tells viewers, “We aren’t asking or negotiating at this point. We’re informing.” Charming!


Brisco’s argument for wanting employees to return to the office is his belief that “we’re better when we’re together: we move faster, [and] we get better results.” This is followed by clips of company executives explaining why they want employees to return to the office. As one tweeter pointed out, none of the reasons they provided consisted of hard data or proof as to why returning to the office would benefit both the employee and the company, but rather they just said a “bunch of cliches.”


Again, the video ends with Brisco telling employees that the company isn’t asking or negotiating but “informing.” This is then followed by a bunch of employees dancing to “Iko Iko” at what can only be described as gunpoint. In response to the criticism — before deleting the video altogether — WebMD updated it to explain that they had been operating under a hybrid policy for the past year, closing with, “As to comments/criticisms on the tone/style, Yeah, corporate videos are corporate videos!” and a shrug emoji.


Both members of the public and employees were left baffled, with one alleged employee writing on anonymous message board Blind that they’ve “seen better acting by hostages in direct-to-DVD movies.” Meanwhile, one Twitter user very aptly pointed out that the company’s entire business is “modeled around doing something at home rather than going to the (doctor’s) office.”